Spiders and Spirituality

On November 17th, we traveled by bus to the town of Mullumbumby. We were going to stay with Claudia and Raman who we connected with through helpx.  Their house was up in the mountains about 15 minutes from town. They own about 25 acers of beautiful land. Claudia is an art and sandtray therapist and Raman is a meditating soul who had lived in India in and out of ashrams with spiritual teachers for about 15 years.

Our accomidations were very rustic. A little cabin out in the wilderness. Our room was closed in and the kitchen was outside sheltered by a roof. It was a big adjustment! After we set our bags down we had the pleasure of chatting with Raman a little more. He told us a little about a spiritual teacher who was in town and a little about why Byron area was on the spiritual circuit. He was very easy to talk to and funny.

Within an hour of being at thier house the temperature went up to 39 degrees C.  Luckily Raman and Claudia were going out to meet up with friends and they dropped us off down by the beach in Brunswick.

The beach had a rock jetty and though the wind was strong it looked like it probably got a great wave when the conditions were right. Raman said that about a week ago the surfers had to come in because there was a big shark spotted there.

That evening I cautiously made dinner with spiders visual everywhere. I tried to make Sebastien’s favorite “easy” recipe.  It was ok. We eat with Raman and Claudia and they told us more about their land and there experiences. Claudia and I had the same views of therapeutic services and it was invigorating to talk with them about these things. She had also found out about Sebastien’s birthday and had bought us some beer.

That evening we returned to our cabin and scanned our room for creepy crawly’s. After crawling into our bed which was on the ground and had a net around it, Sebastien saw an enormous spider on the wall opposite us. I was suprisingly not suprised nor scared but Seba had a different reaction. He went and got Raman to get the spider out of the room. Raman did so without fear and giggled at us.

I did not sleep well that night but woke up ready to spend more time with our new friends. Raman had to work so we helped Claudia weed the garden and then tarp a slanted area in front of their house. This was a little challenging but we did it and now have tarping experience.

Through our day of work we realized that we had to return to Byron on Thursday. We felt bad because we had told Claudia that we would have been there at least 5 days to help. One of the things that Claudia was interested in was getting a website up for her practice. So we assured her that before we left Sebastien would do that for her.

That evening we had dinner in Claudia’s house and had lovely conversation with just her. The next day Sebastien did a patient job at getting her a working website and taught her how to change and add things. That afternoon Raman took us back to Byron Bay.

We will never forget the Mullum.